Once you or your attorney has completed the patent search and the search did not turn up inventions that are the same or similar to yours, it’s time to start drafting your patent application. Typically, an attorney will spend 1 week to 4 weeks drafting your patent application.
Once approved, you own the legal rights to your patent for 20 years. You can also sell or license your patent to third parties. These third parties need: Before filing a patent, find an experienced patent attorney. He or she will help you with: During this step, you search for patents like yours.
Your patent is taking long because at any given moment, the USPTO has a backlog of hundreds of thousands of pending patent application. As of June 2019, the patent office has 553,756 pending patent application and only 8,174 patent examiners to examine the applications.
First, if you choose to have a patentability search performed by our office, that generally takes 1 to 3 weeks to complete, depending on the volume of search results and the workload at the time.
about 30 to 40 hoursHowever, most patent applications take about 30 to 40 hours to draft. This estimate includes the initial inventor interview when the patent attorney interviews the inventor to learn as much as possible about the invention.
A patent attorney will usually charge between $8,000 and $10,000 for a patent application, but the cost can be higher. In most cases, you should budget between $15,000 and $20,000 to complete the patenting process for your invention.
Why does it take so long to get a patent? A patent may take years to secure because the steps to secure the patent are time-consuming, including patentability searching, preparing a patent application, and waiting for the patent office to work through its backlog before it examines your patent application.
Even under the old system, i.e., the “first to invent” system, a “poor man's patent” standing alone, i.e, without a patent application, was worthless. You cannot access the court system and ask a judge or a jury to enforce a right that the U.S. Government does not even recognize as a right.
$20,000 to $60,000The full cost of obtaining and maintaining a U.S. patent over 20 years is in the range of $20,000 to $60,000. This sum is influenced by the type of technology being patented; the number of claims and drawings included in the application; the number and nature of rejections from USPTO; filing fees, etc.
If easy means getting a patent without any rejections, then only 11% of utility nonprovisional patent applications get allowed without any rejections according to this Yale statistical study. So getting a utility patent will not be easy in most cases.
The number of patents that are approved changes every year. According to the most recent statistics from the USPTO, approximately 52% of all patents filed in the U.S are approved.
Without question, getting a patent is an involved process, even a hard process. Many people hire a patent agent to guide them through difficult spots and argue for them regarding rejection lists.
Drafting a Patent Application (2 to 4 weeks) If the search turns up nothing, you're ready to draft a patent application. For a patent attorney, this usually takes 2 to 4 weeks depending on the volume of work, type of patent, information from the applicant, and any changes necessary.
It usually takes between 32 and 34 months for an application to get approved. This includes final rulings such as allowance (acceptance) and abandonment. Abandonment is when the applicant chooses to no longer pursue the patent. Some patents take longer to approve than others.
Patents that have been filed but not yet approved have patent-pending status. You can use your pending patent to make, sell, and license the product during this time. The patent in question must describe and cover all elements of your invention to meet a patent-pending status. However, others might hold a similar patent pending. This gives them legal recourse to prevent you from making and selling the invention. To avoid this situation, perform a right-to-use search before marketing, making, or selling your invention.
Track One is a prioritized type of patent application. It's only available to plant and utility inventions. When filing for Track One, you must pay a bigger fee. The USPTO tries to complete its examination of Track One applications in as little as 12 months.
Sometimes, you might have to file a Request for Continuing Examination or a Continuation Application. This might mean your patent pending status could last five to six years.
Once you file, your invention will have patent-pending status. When drafting an application, make anyone that sees the invention sign a nondisclosure agreement. Once your file your application with the USPTO, a provisional or nonprovisional application will affect how long it takes for acceptance.
It just allows you to file a single patent application one time to flow through several countries. Within 30 to 31 months, you must file a patent application with each country's patent office.
First, if you choose to have a patentability search performed by our office, that generally takes 1 to 3 weeks to complete, depending on the volume of search results and the workload at the time. If we receive all the information about your invention ...
After filing, the length of time to patent grant depends on whether you begin with a provisional or a non-provisional patent application in the United States .
Instead, a non-provisional patent application must be filed within one year of the filing date of the provisional application, in order to claim the benefit of the provisional application filing date. In the case that you file a provisional and then file a provisional on the one year anniversary date of the filing of the provisional, ...
While your patent application is pending (after the patent application is filed but before the patent is granted) you will have patent pending status. You are not required to wait until you obtain a patent to start exploiting (making, marking, selling, licensing, etc.) your invention.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the average time it takes to get a patent is about 25 months. If you want to expedite the process you can pay an extra fee ($1000-$4000) to the USPTO to get prioritized examination utility patents you can cut the time down to 6 to 12 months. A good patent attorney can help you ...
Typically a patent application gets 2-3 Office actions before it gets allowed. This is because the Examiner at the USPTO may require you to identifying how your invention is different, clarify the scope of your invention, and/or change how many inventive features you are claiming.
You may be wondering, “How long does it take to get a design patent?” A typical design patent will take between one and three years for approval. This may depend on whether the design is issued instantly, whether there is a dispute with the USPTO, or if modification for formal issues is required.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office grants patents for legal rights to a specific design. Once granted, a design patent can provide you with exclusive rights to sell and manufactures a specific design or "article of manufacture."
If you think that the design or appearance of your product is unique, and has never been created by others before, a design patent can be extremely useful to protect the design of your product, and to prevent other competitors from mimicking that design in their own products.
When something has a trademark, it has markings that indicate who it is that makes or sells the product. The purpose of a design patent, on the other hand, is not to identify the company that makes a product but is instead to protect the elements of the design. A design patent must be a new design that has never been used before.
Utility patents typically differ from design patents in that they are much wider in scope. A utility patent can be used to protect almost any idea as long as it is new and has not been patented. Some of the common types of items protected with a utility patent include:
While the industrial designs of many companies operating in countries outside the U.S. are protected by those countries' legal systems, the U.S. does not have a system that protects industrial designs. In the United States, design patents are used to provide design protection.
Unlike many European companies, the United States only allows one design per patent application. Sometimes, small variations of a design might be allowed on the same patent but this does not occur often.
As part of your design patent application, you must attach at least 7 figures showing the design you want to patent. All 7 of these figures must be isometric (3D) and you must includes photos of the front, back, left side, right side, top, and bottom. You can add more photos if the figures don’t completely cover how the design looks. Similar to utility patents, you can just take photos of the design, you have to comply with the USPTO drawing requirements. The best way to comply with these requirements is to go a person who is familiar with the USPTO drafting requirements to draft the figures that meet their requirements.
Trademarks are different from design patents in that trademarks are used to identify the source of goods or services. Whereas design patents are not used to identify the source of goods or services, but rather to protect the design itself.
Utility patents are typically used to protect the functional aspects of invention. Utility patents can be used to protect a variety of ideas that include processes, business methods, machines, software, and pharmaceuticals.
You cannot patent what is merely a design. For example, applying the design to a shirt or a canvas will satisfy the requirement of applying it to an article of manufacture.
That said, you can “reassemble” or “rearrange” familiar designs to create your new design. You are basically trying to satisfy the requirement that your design is new and nonobvious (not already known).